In the struggle for life
on this planet, man has clearly won. On land his traces are everywhere
but recently he has gone under water too and the results are devastating.
Hundreds of square miles of reef have been poisoned, dynamited, polluted,
overfished or indirectly damaged by activities on the adjacent land.

A reef is not vast. Often, but a tiny little rim around an island,
a few hundred feet wide then sand; a thin skin of oasis in a vast span
of desert.

Like a symbiotic relationship, of which there are many on the reef,
there are a few places where an interdependency has developed between
man and the reef, where they provide services to each other to the benefit
of both. One such place is Bonaire, a small Caribbean island. Spurred
by the bad example of its sister island Curacao, Bonaire had the foresight
in the seventies to put a halt to the destruction of the reef by declaring
the sea around the island a Marine Park.

Due to its success, the island economy now floats virtually entirely
on diving tourism. The tourists are required to follow a course on how
to behave under water and are not allowed to use diving gloves, because
they are not supposed to touch anything anyway. Here, eco-tourism is
bringing improved livelihoods to much of the population. In its own
way a symbiotic relationship with life both on land and in the water
as the island's wildlife, from the boobies on the cliffs of the North
Western tip of the island to the flamingos on the salt flats in the
South-East, is also protected.

All organisms on the reef are more or less dependent upon each other,
but some have developed such an intricate relationship that they could
no longer live without their partner. Alliances, partnerships and the
enemies they fend off are part of this drama. This photographic exhibit
provides a glimpse into the symbiotic relationships of Bonaire and examples
of symbiotic relationships in reefs in many other parts of the world,
imparting a deep appreciation of the wonder, beauty, and diversity of
life of coral reefs from microorganisms to oceanic fish.